Catherine walked slowly over to the bed. She stood there looking down at her mother. Her face was twisted up with something I couldn’t read.
“Fifty-one years,” she said. Her voice was shaking. “You had a son. I had a brother. And you never told me. I sat with you every week in Chicago at your chemo appointments. I held your hair when you threw up. And you never said one word.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because I was ashamed,” Ruth whispered. “Not of him. Never of him. I was ashamed that I let them take him. That I didn’t fight harder. That I let my father decide my whole life for me.” She reached for Catherine’s hand. “And then I had you, and I was so happy. And I didn’t want you to think there was any part of me that wasn’t completely yours.”
Catherine looked at her mother’s hand for a long time.
